“Good,” Dixon said.“I like that dress.”
The radio on Deputy Sims’s shoulder coughed with static, and then we heard Roxi telling him to bring Cody out.“His ride’s here to take him to County.He’ll be spendin’ the night in their presidential suite after a stop at the hospital to crack that broken nose back into place.”
Cody groaned, and I smiled.He deserved jail.No doubt his lawyers and his family would be working overtime to set him free, but at least for tonight, he’d have to live with what he’d done.
I kept the smile on my face while Deputy Sims opened the cell door and dragged Cody out by the neck of his shirt.“Have fun,” I said unapologetically, and I winked as Frank cuffed him again.
Cody had nothing more to say to me, and as soon as they had gone, Dixon’s eyes met mine through the bars.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“You have nothin’ to apologize for.I’msorry.Sorry I got you into this mess.Are you okay?”
“I… I’ll be fine,” he said, but he cast his eyes to the floor.
“Your hands.”I pointed to his knuckles, bruised already and still covered in Cody’s dried blood.
Dixon held them up and looked at them, but then he swiped them over his jeans, trying to brush the dark red crust off.“I dunno what this means for me.Nothin’ good, that’s for damn sure.”
“It wasn’t your fault.You didn’t do anything?—”
“I didn’t do anythingwrong?”he argued.“Do you live in some kinda la-la land so filled with hearts and flowers that you can’t see out?Ibeatthat man tonight.I could’ve beaten him to death.”
“But you didn’t.”
“In the eyes of the law, I’m not sure how much that matters.”
“You were protectin’ me.”
“God,” he breathed, “did you see my sister’s face?I let her down.I’ve let them all down.And Stu?I’ll be lucky if Bax lets him so much as say my name after this.”
“Don’t say that.I’ll explain it to Bax, to all of them.They’ll understand.”
“What exactly will they understand, Avery Jane?That I had a choice tonight, and once again, I chose wrong?That instead of choosin’ my family—my son—I chose violence?I chose to let my demons out.I chose the easy way out.”
“Dixon, you didn’t?—”
“Goddammit, Avery.Stop!You’re doin’ it again, and I can’t stomach you tryin’ to make up excuses to forgive me.I need you to go.I’m sorry, but I need to think this through, and I can’t do that with you here.”
An invisible wall came slamming down between us, the same one I still recognized from high school that Dixon used to wield like a shield, and it cut our connection right down the middle.“Dixon?”
“Please, AJ?Please just let me be?”His hands gripped the cell’s bars, and I slid mine over his, ignoring the dried blood and dirt.
“I’ll go,” I said, “because you asked me to, but don’t you dare think I’m givin’ up on you.”
ChapterThirty-Five
Dixon
Hours passed.It had to be close to one in the morning, and Abey still hadn’t come to talk to me.
Maybe she had nothing to say.Maybe I’d finally pushed even her away.I hadn’t meant to, but I’d put my sister in the shittiest position, and now she’d be faced with having to choose her job over her family.And it would kill her.
Lying on the floor, staring at a dirty ceiling while normal people went on with their normal lives ten feet away from me was nothing new.Being close enough to see and smell the normalcy, hear the humdrum of it all, but not close enough to touch it could be maddening.
I’d had a short taste of that normalcy, and for the first time in my life, I’d loved every goddamn second.
Fuck it.
